Evaluation of Horizontal Well Performance After Drilling-Induced Formation Damage

Abstract

It is well recognized that near-wellbore formation damage can dramatically reduce well productivities, especially for open hole completed horizontal wells. The economic impact of poor productivity of these wells has pushed toward significant efforts in recent years to study laboratory testing techniques and numerical modeling methods for predicting and controlling drilling-induced formation damage. This paper presents an integrated approach, combining a near-wellbore modeling with laboratory experiments for data acquisition as input for the model, to evaluate the performance of oil and gas wells after drilling-induced formation damage.

Coupled simulation of near-wellbore and reservoir models

“…To simulate drilling induced formation damage, the near-wellbore physics, such as the presence of mud cake, phase trapping, polymer adsorption/retention, wettability alteration, high fluid viscosity, etc., should be considered (Ding and Renard, 2005;Wu et al, 2009). All these phenomena are taken into account by the near-well model, but cannot be considered by the standard reservoir simulator.…”

“…Modelling of near-well flow requires very fine gridblocks around the well, which is not at the same scale as the reservoir flow simulation. Some models have been developed to study the near-wellbore formation damage mechanism and the stimulation procedure (see, for example, Minssieux et al, 1998;Veerapen et al, 2001;Ding et al, 2004;Parn-anurak and Engler, 2004;Ding and Renard, 2005;Bedrikovetsky et al, 2006;Moghadasi et al, 2006;Civan, 2007;Cohen et al, 2008;Byrne et al, 2009;Lohne et al, 2009;Wu et al, 2009), but most of them are standalone for the modelling around a single well and are decoupled from reservoir and production scenarios.…”

Simulation of Fracturing Induced Formation Damage and Gas Production from Fractured Wells in Tight Gas Reservoirs

“…However, an equivalent skin or numerical PI value used for long-term production simulation can be determined through an inversion procedure (see, Ding and Renard 2005).…”

Modeling Formation Damage for Flow Simulations at Reservoir Scale

“…Additional aspects, such as high viscosity of drilling fluid, different relative permeability curves between drilling fluid and reservoir fluid, different cake properties during drilling and back production etc., should be considered (Ding et al [3], [4]). Additional aspects, such as high viscosity of drilling fluid, different relative permeability curves between drilling fluid and reservoir fluid, different cake properties during drilling and back production etc., should be considered (Ding et al [3], [4]).…”

“…Some models have been developed to study the near-wellbore formation damage (Minssieux et al [1], Veerapen et al [2], Ding et al [3][4], Bedrikovetsky et al [5], Moghadasi et al [6], Civan [7]), but these models are mostly used for the modeling of formation damage around a single well and are decoupled from reservoir production scenarios. The economic impact of poor productivity of some wells has pushed toward significant efforts in recent years to study laboratory testing techniques and numerical modeling methods for predicting formation damage.…”